Dr. Wonderful Read online

  If the lack of bathing facilities fazed him, to his credit, he didn’t show it. “A kitchen?” he asked.

  She shook her head.

  “I’d still like to check the place out, if that’s all right with you.”

  She shrugged, figuring he’d take one look at the dusty old ruin and beat a fast retreat to California. “I’ll see if Mrs. McClain will look after Emily.”

  A few minutes later, with the two girls settled under her neighbor’s watchful eye, Becca climbed into the front seat of the Land Rover and took a deep breath. “I love that new-car smell. You were lucky to get a brand-new rental.”

  Matt turned the SUV around and headed down the mountain for the village. “It’s not a rental. I bought it in Asheville.”

  Becca settled into the deep leather seat and fastened her seat belt. The car cost more than she earned in a year and had depreciated by thousands of dollars the minute he had driven it off the lot. She couldn’t wrap her mind around having that kind of income to toss around. The doctor seemed to accept spending money as naturally as breathing.

  So had Grady.

  Her former fiancé had thought money could buy him anything. But she’d taught him differently, much to his—and his father’s—surprise. She had refused to place a price on honor, dignity and self-respect. With a shudder of revulsion, she pushed those memories away and gazed out the window at the road ahead.

  She always enjoyed the drive into the village. The rain had stopped, the clouds were lifting and the sun was shining. On the way down the mountain, every curve of the gravel road revealed breathtaking vistas of ridge after ridge of softly folded mountains clad in blue haze. These mountains were her home. She’d felt strangely exposed in the alien landscape when she’d gone to college at the edge of the North Carolina Piedmont in Chapel Hill, away from the Smokies’ sheltering, comforting presence. She had always hungered to return to Warwick Mountain. She’d fled here when her world collapsed over five years ago, and she hadn’t left since.

  Didn’t plan to. Ever.

  Matt handled the hairpin curves smoothly, driving with the same easy confidence that seemed to suffuse every aspect of the man’s personality. Becca wondered if his remarkable self-possession was the result of his incredible wealth or an innate characteristic. Nothing seemed to rattle the man. When confronted with a problem, he immediately looked for solutions—with the assumption they’d be there.

  And solutions, she thought with a twinge of envy, were infinitely more available when money was also plentiful. Then she silently rebuked herself. Money couldn’t buy love, and she wouldn’t trade all of Dr. Wonderful’s millions for her life on Warwick Mountain with Emily, family, friends and memories of Granny.

  They passed orchards of gnarled apple trees, limbs heavy with ripening fruit; stands of ancient hickories and oaks with an understory of dogwoods and wild azaleas; and cultivated fields, hip high in corn, defying gravity to grow tall and straight on the steep forty-five-degree slopes.

  “This is beautiful country,” Matt said.

  “Nice place to visit but you wouldn’t want to live here?” Becca asked.

  “What makes you say that?” Matt’s tone implied curiosity rather than offense.

  The Land Rover had rounded the last curve and exited the gravel secondary road onto the narrow blacktop of Warwick Mountain’s Main Street. Actually, Warwick Mountain’s only street.

  “This isn’t exactly Rodeo Drive.” Becca pointed out the landmarks. “That’s the Baptist church where the street dead-ends. Three houses on one side of the street, the feed store and convenience store/gas station on the other. You’re not in California anymore, Toto.”

  Matt pulled in front of the feed store and parked. “I can tell that by the air.”

  Feeling her hackles rising in defense of her home territory, Becca turned on him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  The smile he flashed was one-hundred watt. “You can’t see the air here. It’s too clean. Unlike the smog I’m used to.”

  She bent her head to unfasten her seat belt, glad for the chance to avoid his face. As hard as she tried to dislike the man, he kept doing and saying things that won her over. Admiring her daughter, showing compassion for Lizzie, appreciating the quality of mountain air. Good thing he wouldn’t be staying at her home. He’d probably have her eating out of his hand in no time, just like every other female on the planet.

  Becca, however, had her experiences with Grady as a shield against the doctor’s charms. She’d made a fool of herself over a man once.

  Never again.

  She opened the door and hopped to the curb. “Ready to inspect the real estate?”

  Confident he’d take one look at the interior of the feed store and hop the first flight back to Los Angeles, she strode up the wooden stairs of the loading dock to unlock the wide, double front doors.

  MATT WATCHED HER graceful ascent of the stairs with appreciation. Rebecca Warwick was like no other woman he’d ever met. In California, every female he’d encountered had been obviously impressed by his wealth and his status. He rarely had to ask a woman for a date. Someone always called him first, inviting him to this party or that opening. The enigmatic Miss Warwick was apparently totally unimpressed by his celebrity status or his money. Her only interest seemed to be helping the people of her community obtain medical care.

  And protecting her reputation.

  But hadn’t she already damaged her standing in the community by having a child without a father? As conservative as she insisted her neighbors were, the people evidently didn’t hold the circumstances of Emily’s conception against Becca, or she wouldn’t be teaching their children.

  Questions swarmed him like mosquitoes on a summer night. Who was Emily’s father and what had happened to him? Who could love such a vibrant woman and have such an adorable little girl and just walk away from them? Or maybe the man had died—

  “Cold feet?” Rebecca stood at the top of the loading dock, looking down at him, and he realized he’d been lost in thought.

  “We can forget this idea, if you like,” she said. “I won’t be offended if you decide you’ve already seen enough.”

  Matt turned his attention from the enticing woman with the mocking green eyes to the ancient structure of the feed store. Taking the stairs two at a time, he joined her on the dock. “Too soon to make up my mind. I haven’t seen anything yet. Lead the way.”

  With a flick of her delicate wrist, she keyed the rusty lock and disengaged it. The double doors swung open with a squeal of rusty hinges.

  Rebecca grimaced at the noise.

  “Nothing a little WD-40 can’t fix,” Matt assured her and followed her inside.

  Late-afternoon sun spilled through the tall windows that ran the length of the building on both sides, and dust motes floated in the rays illuminating the huge timber-framed space. Marks on the floors, indicating where storage bins and displays had sat, and a few empty crates were the only items left in the building.

  “Bathroom’s at the rear.” Becca nodded toward a closet-size enclosure in the back corner. “Otherwise, what you see is what you get.”

  Matt ran his hand along an exposed wall stud. “Good bones.”

  Rebecca looked puzzled. “That a medical term?”

  “It’s a building expression. The structure’s well built with good materials. You can’t find heart pine like this anymore.”

  “It may be well built, but I doubt it will suit you. As you can see—” she encompassed the open space and uncovered windows with a sweep of her hand “—there’s no privacy, and definitely no creature comforts. Worse than living in a barn. At least in a barn, you’d have hay to sleep on.”

  “Trying to get rid of me?”

  Although he’d made his tone joking, he couldn’t help wondering why she seemed reluctant for him to stay. She’d certainly balked at all his other suggestions for boarding arrangements. Even though her reservations had sounded reasonable, he sensed her throwing up wal
ls, as if afraid to allow him to get too close. Maybe her reaction was typical of someone who lived in such seclusion. Or maybe she just didn’t want him upsetting her routine.

  “Being realistic,” she said. “If you don’t rest well and eat well, you can’t work. If you can’t work, you’re no help to anyone.” She shrugged, lifting her shoulders in a manner that made him want to wrap his hands around them. “I knew this was a bad idea.”

  “Hold on.” He strode toward the back of the building, stuck his head into the tiny bathroom, then paced off several feet of the adjoining space. “This can work.”

  She shook her head in exasperation. “How?”

  “If you’ll let me, I can frame and drywall a bedroom area—”

  He stopped as her eyes widened in apparent disapproval.

  “Or I could just string a few tarps for privacy—”

  “You?” Skepticism dripped from the word.

  “Sure. Why not?”

  “You’re a doctor, not a carpenter.”

  He enjoyed a smidgen of satisfaction. He’d apparently befuddled the unflappable Miss Warwick. “I’m a doctor and a carpenter.”

  Her puzzled look disappeared. “I get it. Woodworking is your hobby.”

  He shook his head. “More than a hobby. I’m a master carpenter.”

  Her bafflement returned. “Why?”

  “Why not?”

  “Afraid Hollywood’s quest for eternal youth will go bust and you’ll need a backup career? I don’t think so.” She shook her head in disbelief.

  “I haven’t always been a plastic surgeon.”

  She tilted her head upward, at the same time lifting her lips in a smile so inviting he shoved his hands in his pockets to keep from reaching for her. “You mean you had a life before Dr. Wonderful?”

  “You agreeable to letting me stay here?”

  “If you’re serious.”

  He nodded, then dragged a couple of abandoned fruit crates from a corner, dusted them off with his sleeve and set them in a rectangle of light pouring through a window. “Have a seat, and I’ll bore you to death with the story of my life.”

  She glanced distrustfully at the crate, eased onto it, crossed her legs and clasped her hands around one knee. “Hope it’s a short story.”

  “Short but not sweet.” He settled on the crate across from her and wondered where the crazy impulse to tell all had come from. He never talked about his past. Never really even thought about it. But for some unfathomable reason, he wanted to share it with Rebecca Warwick.

  “Don’t tell me you were a bad little boy,” she teased. “You must have had some discipline or you’d have never made it through medical school.”

  “I wasn’t bad. Just poor.”

  She narrowed her eyes in disbelief. “The other kids drove a Mercedes or Porsche to high school and you only had a Toyota? That kind of poor?”

  “Nope, the old-fashioned not-having-two-nickels-to-rub-together kind of poor. My father died when I was two. Killed by a drunk driver. No life insurance. My mother cleaned other people’s houses to support us. I know what it’s like to do without.” He’d always felt ashamed of his past around his celebrity friends, but he felt no censure from Rebecca.

  “That’s why you became a doctor, so you wouldn’t have to do without again?”

  Her question shocked him, not by its bluntness—he’d come to expect that from her—but by triggering memories he hadn’t thought of in years. “I went into medicine because I watched my mother sicken and die during my high-school years. I wanted to keep other children’s mothers from dying before their time.”

  “So that’s why you chose plastic surgery as a specialty?” She didn’t try to hide the irony in voice.

  “I chose plastic surgery because Dwight adopted me as his protégé while I was in college. That’s also where the carpentry came in.”

  He resisted the impulse to squirm under her gaze, knowing how shallow his words about his mother must have sounded. Somewhere along the line between her death and reaching the pinnacle of success, he’d lost sight of his original motivations. He pushed the uncomfortable realization away.

  “I worked my way through college as a carpenter. I was framing an addition to Dr. Peyseur’s Beverly Hills home when I first met him. He and Madeline sort of adopted me when they learned I had no family.”

  “Lucky you.”

  He heard the cynicism in her tone. “It wasn’t what you think. Dwight didn’t give me money. I was earning a good living, enough to pay my way, at least. What he gave me was encouragement—and a place where I felt I belonged.”

  “Beverly Hills.” She raised a delicate eyebrow. “Must have been a very nice place to belong.”

  “It wasn’t the place so much as the people. Dwight’s like a father to me. And I miss Madeline almost as much as my own mother.”

  “Dwight’s a good man. Emily and I had been looking forward to his visit.”

  “And now you’re stuck with me instead.”

  “Not unless you choose to live here.”

  He glanced around the space again, picturing improvements in his mind. “It’s doable.”

  “Question is,” Rebecca said, “how much time for doctoring will you have if you’re working to refurbish this place?”

  He abandoned thoughts of Fiji temporarily, drawn by the prospect of working with wood, hammer and nails again. Maybe the physical exertion would do him as much good as a South Pacific cruise. It had been a long time since he’d worked up a sweat outside a gym or off a tennis court. Too long since he’d experienced the satisfaction of building something with his own hands.

  Plastic surgery, of course, was construction, or reconstruction, but it was also stressful, with its intricacies and challenges, not to mention the expectations of his patients. Carpentry was good honest toil in the open air. And air didn’t come any better than what he’d breathed on Warwick Mountain.

  “I could have this place shaped up in three or four days,” he estimated. “That includes framing in a temporary examination room and waiting area. Nothing I couldn’t knock down in a hurry when I’m through here.”

  “No!” Rebecca jumped to her feet.

  “Hey.” Matt lifted his hands. “It was just a suggestion. I can just throw up tarps—”

  “I meant don’t tear down anything when you’re through here. And I’ll pay for the improvements.”

  “What if they don’t suit your plans for this building? You plan to reopen the feed store?”

  She shook her head. “Folks here would rather drive forty miles to pay discount prices at the big chain stores. I have other plans for this building.”

  She had tweaked his curiosity. “Turning it into a school?” he asked.

  She sank back onto the crate. “So Dwight didn’t tell you?”

  “Is it a secret?”

  She nodded. “No one knows but Dwight and me, just in case my idea doesn’t work out. That way folks won’t be disappointed.”

  He studied her with interest. Rebecca Warwick was blunt and direct, but she was far from simple. He sensed a depth to the woman quite different from the shallow starlets that moved in and out of his life like the tides on Malibu Beach.

  “If you tell me what you’re planning,” he said, “I can build to your specifications.”

  She lifted her head to meet his gaze. “My grandmother would still be alive if we’d had an emergency clinic in Warwick Mountain. She died on the way to the Asheville hospital. Her heart gave out. The doctors there had the medicine that would have saved her, but she ran out of time before they could administer it.”

  “You plan to turn this place into an emergency clinic?” he asked in disbelief. He couldn’t decide whether she was courageous or crazy. Maybe both.

  She nodded. “I do.”

  Admiration swelled inside him, along with the knowledge that the spunky woman had bitten off more than she could chew. “A building’s one thing. Do you have any idea how much it costs to furnish and staff th
e kind of clinic you’re describing?”

  She set her jaw in a stubborn line. “Dwight’s helped me with the figures.”

  “Dwight encouraged this insanity?” he blurted. “He, of all people, should know what you’re up against.”

  “He tried to talk me out of it at first.” She tilted her chin at an angle, as if daring him to take a swipe at her. “But when he realized how serious I am, he said he’d help.”

  “Financing?”

  She shook her head. “I didn’t ask him for money. I intend to apply for grants, appeal to charities. And I’m hoping when Dwight retires in a few years, he’ll come here to supervise the clinic for us.”

  Matt let out a long, low whistle. “When you dream, girl, I have to give you credit, you dream big.”

  She threw her arms wide, encircling the space. “But my dream’s coming true. I have the building. And now you’ve offered to build examining and waiting rooms. It’s a start, anyway.”

  “Whoa,” he warned her. “Don’t get your hopes up. The improvements will be rough. If I’m treating patients, I won’t have time for the finishing details.” What was he getting himself into?

  “Taking care of Lizzie and the others, that’s the most important thing,” Rebecca insisted.

  Matt shoved to his feet. “Then I’d better get started. I’ll take you back to your house, then head for the closest town for building supplies.”

  She scrutinized him with a stare that seemed to pierce right through him. “You’re sure you want to do this?”

  “Absolutely.” And when he returned to California, he’d make an appointment with Ron Feather-stone, the psychiatrist he played tennis with, to have his head examined.

  He followed her outside, waited while she locked the double doors, then headed for the car.

  He hoped he wasn’t making a mistake. Rebecca’s hopes for an emergency clinic in that old building were a pipe dream, as he’d already tried to tell her.

  With a sigh, he took an internal reality check. Talk about pipe dreams. Building Becca’s clinic wasn’t Fiji, but it would definitely be a change.